So, it’s about time I wrote something a little more about the building of our bikes. To begin with we should probably explain that we’ve built the bikes on the three Rs: reliability, repairability, replacability. They are built so that if they fail (which they shouldn’t) we can fix them, and if we can’t fix them we should be able to buy the parts we need literally anywhere on earth. In short, they are very simple bikes and very high quality. So the parts in particular are:

The FrameWe bought Surly Long Haul Trucker frames, fairly cheap online. They cost £318.74 a piece which is about as cheap as you can get them. There’s no glamour, they’re just strong, simple and comfortable.

WheelsUnlike the frame, the wheels are something a bit special. We enlisted the services of famed wheel builder Harry Rowland from lovely Kent, where Helen comes from. The rims are from the Netherlands, from a company called Ryde. They are Ryde’s Sputnik rim supersonically coated with tungsten carbide. This means that, although they need special brake blocks, the rims should make it 26,000 miles around the world. Spokes on both are a selection of decent spam, recommend by Harry Rowland. The rear hub is a bog standard cup-and-cone Deore LX that we can service as we go. The front hub is a Son Schmidt 28 dyno-hub that should be good for 50,000 km. These are wrapped in 2 inch Schwalbe Marathon Supremes that roll quickly but are still comfortable.

DrivetrainThe drivetrain is based around the Deore XT range from Shimano with Deore XT front and rear derailleurs. On the rear is a 11-34 cassette (a fairly standard Shimano HG80) and the crankset is Spa Cycles own XD2, based on the classic Sugino crankset, but an awful lot cheaper. I expect that before we go we will have to replace the chain rings with something a little more fancy so that they can last the course. Connecting front and rear is a KMC X9 chain, the strongest we could get.

CockpitI decided to go for the Nitto Noodle handlebars, because nobody recommended anything else. These are wrapped in lovely squishy Specialized Bar Phat. At the ends are basic Diacompe bar end friction shifters that should work with any drivetrain that we later need to install. For the hoods, we chose a basic Tiagra aero brake lever.

StoppingBecause the rims are carbide coated, they are extremely aggressive towards brake pads. We chose Avid’s Shorty 4 cantilever brakes because they can take V-brake pads, with which we are running Swisstop Blue pads. Initially, we had Koolstop black pads which were supposed to match with the carbide rims, however they more or less dissolved after 60 miles. Apparently Koolstop are in production of an updated pad that will be able to cope with Ryde’s new carbide formula.

LuggageWe bought Tubus racks. It’s because they’re the best. We are taking with us Vaude panniers, the choice was really only between Vaude and Ortlieb but we could get the Vaude Aqua range for about half the price of the Ortliebs, and when we looked into it they seemed to be more adaptable and a better fit for the bikes. We still need to buy our handlebar bags, but they’re not particularly urgent for now (and we know we’ll be buying Vaude ones anyway).

BottomsI went for my trusty old Rido Sport R2 (that took me down the West Coast of America), Helen plumped for a Selle-Italia diva. These are mounted on Suntour SP12-NCX suspension seat posts to soak up all of the rough stuff.

Bits and bobsApart from all of the above, the rest of pretty basic and standard, which is the point. Nice and simple Shimano mountain bike cables, a fairly basic alloy stem, a square taper bottom bracket and some alloy spacers. None of those things should really break, but if they do it’s an easy fix or replacement. And mud guards (SKS Bluemels). Because it’s nice to be dry.

PowerThe front hub, the Schmidt Son 28, is powering our Sinewave Reactor USB ports which are a super simple top cap replacement with a little gold plated USB socket, to endure all weathers. Together, the hub and reactor convert the forward motion of the bike to a steady electrical output that we can use to charge all of our gizmos and gadgets as we go so we can keep updated all the way.

Fankly bitsThese are the bits I didn’t account for despite all of my hours of research. In truth, there were only really two:

The hanger on the stem for the caliper brake cable

This was the big one, the cable guides for front and rear derailleur.

I had no idea that the Long Haul Trucker frame didn’t come with cable guides, and in fact looked like it was more suited for down tube shifters. Of course, there are cable guides separately available, but not on a Sunday in Glasgow when no one knows what you’re talking about and you really, really want to get the bikes finished. So, if you watch our little video, you will see that we went off to sunny Hamilton on a rainy afternoon and met with the excellent Malcolm, who runs Hamilton bikes. Malcolm’s business is refurbishing bikes and fixing silly problems like ours. I was a bit dubious at first when Malcolm suggested, “well we’ll just drill into the frame, then use these cable guides which are really meant for brakes,” but they worked! And although it took us about six hours, Malcolm was always happy to help, teach us and send us for pastry. So our enormous thanks to him for being so generous.

And our thanks to the top gentleman Dan Jones, and the splendid Helen Blake, for driving all the way from London to help us build our bikes and then driving all the way back again all in 48 hours.

​Total cost and component break downBoth bikes cost the same (except Helen’s new saddle), so here’s a breakdown of everything we spent:

Surly Long Haul Trucker£318.74Triton Cycles

Nitto Noodle handlebars£30Hubjub

Specialized Bar Phat tape£14.99Cycle Store

Zenith classic road stem£16Hubjub

General alloy spacers£7.12 pack of 6Wiggle

Diacomp bar end shifters£40 for pairSpa Cycles

Shimano R400 levers (with brake cables)£19.95 a pairWiggle

Shimano gear cables£14.49Wiggle

Gear cable guides£10Hamilton cycles, Glasgow

Brake cable guides£5Craig MacMartin shop, Pollokshaws Road

Sinewave Reactor£106Sinewave

Cane Creek 40 headset£24.96High on Bikes

Suntour SP12-NCX suspension seat post£41.81Bike-Discount

Wheels built by Harry Rowland£205.50 a pairHarry Rowland

Front hub Schmidt Son 28£165Spa Cycles

Schwalbe Marathon Supreme tyres£44 a pairSpa Cycles

Inner tubes£7 Craig MacMartin shop, Pollokshaws Road

Avid Shorty 4s£27 eachDales Cycles, Glasgow

Brake pads Swisstop Blue£24.99 for 4Spa Cycles

AG Aggressive V brake pad cartridges£8 a pairSpa Cycles

Spa Cycles XD-2 crankset£30Spa Cycles

Shimano HG80 9 speed cassette£24.95Wiggle

Deore XT front derailleur£23.99Evans Cycles

Deore XT rear derailleur£39.99Wiggle

KMC X9 chain£8.91Wiggle

Stronglight self extracting crank bolts£10Spa Cycles

Shimano UN55 square taper bottom bracket£14.49Chain Reaction

Panniers – Vaude Aqua£131.86 per bikeBike Inn/Vaude

Tubus racks£100 a bikeRose Bikes

Mudguards SKS Bluemels£23.99 a pairChain Reaction

Pedals – free from old bikes

Selle-Italia Diva Gel Flow£54.99Wiggle​Total £1522.73 per bike (not including Helen’s saddle and delivery costs). We got a quote for almost exactly this spec £1950.52 so we managed to save some money and learnt copious amounts by building them ourselves.